Lumia 530 with Windows Phone 8.1 goes on sale at roughly Rs: 6,000/-

Microsoft latest budget Windows Phone 8.1 handset, the Lumia 530, has finally gone on sale- first becoming available in China, priced at CNY 599 .

Engadget China reports that the Lumia 530 is now available at leading online retailers as well as physical stores in the country. Microsoft, while announcing Lumia 530 last month, had revealed that the handset will be rolled-out in select markets starting August.

The Lumia 530 was launched alongside its dual-SIM variant, Lumia 530 Dual SIM. Both the handsets come with identical specifications, except that the latter supports dual-SIM functionality. Suggest pricing by Microsoft was EUR 85 before taxes and subsidies.

Unfortunately, there is no official word from Microsoft when the handset will be reaching other markets, including India. Notably, the official 530 Dual SIM, hinting that we might only see the dual-SIM variant in India-and soon.

The new Lumia handset runs Windows phone 8.1 with Lumia Cyna update and supports firmware over the air (FOTA) updates. The Lumia 530 will be available in Bright Orange, Bright Green, Dark Grey and White colour variants. Further, the Lumia 530 sports changeable rear shells.

The Lumia 530 comes with 4-inch FWVGA (480 by 854 pixels) LCD display that offers a pixel density of 246ppi. It is powered by a 1.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 alongside fixed focus rear camera and also comes preloaded with digital camera add-ons such as Bing vision, Nokia Camera, and Nokia Glam Me.

The new lumia samrtphone includes 4GB of inbuilt storage which is further expandable up to 128GB via microsoft card. The lumia 530, much like other lumia handsets , comes with 15GB free OneDrive cloud storage space. THe smartphonesmeasures. 119.7 by 62.3 by 11.mm and weighs 128 grams.

The Lumia 530 packs a 1430mAh battery which is rated to deliver up to 10hours of talk time and up to 528 hours of standby tim. The smartphone comes with GPRS/EDGE, 3G, Wi-Fi (802.11/b/g/n),Bluetooth (4.0), GPS and Micro-USB connectivity options.

Notably, both the Lumia 530 and Lumia 530 Dual SIM support Micro-SIM cards.

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Microsoft to Brand Tablets Lumia, smartphones 'Nokia by Microsoft'

 

Microsoft closed the deal with Nokia couple of months ago, and now new reports indicate that the Redmond giant may soon make a couple of changes to its smartphones and tablet brand names.

@eveleaks , an established tipster in the tech industry, claims that Microsoft will eventually change the brand of windows phone handsets' from Nokia to 'Nokia by Microsoft'.

"This is pretty exiciting: Microsoft is reportedly in the final stages of licensing the Nokia brand, for the purpose of calling the handsets 'Nokia by Microsoft.' Furthermore, say goodbye to surface, and hello to Lumia, as the tablet lineup faces brand streamlining.

As mentioned , evleaks claims that Microsoft will aslo drop its Surface brand name for its tablets and will instead use the Lumia moniker. According to Phonearena, a document revealead that Microsoft was planning to discard the Nokia brand name from its smartphones 18months after the transaction has been closed.

It has been further mentioned that both Nokia X and Nokia Asha devices might lose their brand names after December 31 , 2015, and after 10 years, respectively.

Microsoft Mobiles last week launched the Nokia X2 handset, the successor to its popular Nokia X Android-based smartphone. Some of the key specifications of the Nokia x2 include a 4.3-inch clear black LCD display with WVGA resolution , a dual-core Qualcomm snapdragon 200 processor clocked at 1.2 GHz, 1GB of RAM , a 5-megapixel autofocus rear camera with LED flash, an unspecified front-facing camera, an 1800mAh battery, and 4GB of built-in storage that is expandable via microSD (up to 32GB).

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New Micromax Releases!!! It looks to be different .....

Micromax’s press conference in Delhi is yet to kick off, but the details of its two Windows Phone smartphones have leaked. In an interview with Economic Times, Micromax chairman Sanjay Kapoor has revealed all the details about the two smartphones the company is set to launch in sometime. The devices to be launched today are the Canvas Win W092 and the Win W121, which are priced at Rs 6,500 and Rs 9,500 respectively.

Starting with the Canvas Win W092, the affordable smartphone features a 4-inch display, 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM, dual-SIM connectivity and a 1,500mAh battery. As mentioned above, the Canvas Win W092 is priced at Rs 6,500.

The more expensive Canvas Win W121, on the other hand, features a 5-inch display, 1.2GHz Snapdragon 200 quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 8GB internal storage that can be expanded up to 32GB, 8-megapixel rear camera, 2-megapixel front-facing camera, and dual-SIM connectivity. The Canvas Win W121 is priced at Rs 9,500.

Both the smartphones run on Windows Phone 8.1 and will be available from July onwards.

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Come to New World Of Nokia Lumia 636 and Lumia 638 With 1GB of RAM.

After unveiling the Nokia X+ handset in India, Microsoft-owned Nokia has now announced the TD-LTE enabled Lumia 636 and Lumia 638 smartphones in China. TD-LTE is Time-Division Duplex LTE, one of two LTE standards (the other being Frequency-Division LTE) and the one supported by Chinese telecom operators.

It has been noted that while the Lumia 636 (Seen above) is set for China Unicom network carrier, the Lumia 638 (Seen below) is headed for China Mobile.Both handsets are priced at CNY 1,299 (roughly Rs. 12,400) and will hit the shelves on 21 June (Lumia 638) and 5 July (Lumia 636). The Lumia 638 is being currently showcased in the on-going Mobile Asia Expo in Shanghai. Both handsets will be available in matte Black, White, Orange and Yellow colour variants. It is not yet clear whether the handsets feature dual-SIM support or not.

Based on the popular Nokia Lumia 630 (Review | Pictures) handset, which was launched during the Microsoft Build 2014 event in April, the Lumia 636 and Lumia 638 have almost identical specifications, but feature 1GB of RAM instead of 512MB on the Lumia 630. Notably, the LTE-capable Lumia 635 was also launched at the same event.

The common features shared by the Lumia 636, Lumia 638, Lumia 630 and Lumia 635 include 4.5-inch FWVGA (480x854 pixels) ClearBlack LCD display with Gorilla Glass 3 and a pixel density of 221ppi; a 1.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor ; 8GB of built-in storage; a 5-megapixel rear autofocus camera; no front-facing camera, and a 1830mAh battery.

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Nokia's phone business to be renamed Microsoft Mobile, but the 'brand' will live on

Nokia and Microsoft have sent a joint email to Nokia account holders talking about the process of data transfer between the two entities.

The email says that with the sale of Nokia's sale of its Devices and Services business to Microsoft - expected to be completecd this month, the email reiterates - a Microsoft Finnish affiliate named Microsoft will assume "responsibility for you personal data and the contractual relationship for the products and services related to this business." The email adds that customers "should experience no difference as a result of the sale."

While the name of the entity will be changed to Microsoft Mobile, Microsoft is likely to continue using the Nokia as the consumer- facing brand, having licensed it from the Finnish company earlier.

"Microsoft has also agreed to a 10-year license arrangement with Nokia to use the Nokia brand on current subsequently developed mobile phones based on the series 30 and series 40 operating systems," Nokia had said soon after announcing the sale of its Device and service business to Microsoft.

After the completion of the deal, Nokia will be left with its telecom equipment (NSN), location (HERE) and patent development business, would have the right to continue and maintain the Nokia brand, except for certain period as per the agreement.

After the closing the deal "Nokia would be restricted from licensing the Nokia brand for use in connection with mobile device salesfor 30 months and from using the Nokia brand on Nokia's own mobile device until December 31, 2015,".

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Windows Phone 8.1 Review

 Microsoft launched its highly-anticipated Windows Phone 8.1 update at its keynote address at the Build 2014 conference on Wednesday. The event also saw the unveiling of the Windows 8.1 Update operating system version, alongside three new devices, Nokia Lumia 930, Lumia 630 and Lumia 635, which will be the platform lead devices for Windows Phone 8.1 OS version.

The Following are some great features of WP 8.1 OS.

Action Center 

• Notification center – Alerts, non-Toast notifications, update history, more
• Quick-access to customized actions, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Plane mode, etc.

Apps + Store

• Apps can capture audio/video from themselves; be limited for copyright concerns
• App and Game data stored on SD cards
• Apps on SD Cards are only allowed from ONE originating phone. If it detects that apps from another phone are installed on the SD Card, then it will ask to delete those first
• App Suggestions by location
• Backup of App + Game data to OneDrive (if developer enabled)
• Facebook app comes with OS, updates independently, hooks into OS
• Filter through installed apps by usage/install date
• Manual Update checks
• New Store design and features
• Option to update store apps automatically
• Option to update store apps when only on Wi-Fi
• Single sign-in for apps (like on Windows 8) with Microsoft Account; sign in will persist across devices + apps with permissions prompt

Calendar

• Google calendar support, with multiple calendars
• Weather in calendar
• Week view in calendar

Camera

• Burst camera mode, including auto-deletion of bursts
• New layout

Bing

• Bing smart search (similar search system as Windows 8.1)
• Podcast app powered by Bing, full featured

Browser

• Internet Explorer 11
• IE 11 to save and remember your password for websites
• JavaScript and HTML for app development
• Upload files through Internet Explorer 11
• Tabs now show up individually in multi-task window
• WebGL and Normal mapping support
• YouTube Player including HTML5 video support

Developer

• Background tasks: Bluetooth signal strength, Chat message notification, Device connection change, Device use trigger, Gatt characteristic notification, Location, Push notification, Rfcomm connection, System event, Timer
• XAP replaced by APPX
• ​​Audio/video transcoding that’s hardware accelerated
• New dev tools including: SemanticZoom, DatePicker, TimePicker
• Actionable notifications for apps
• Silent/ghost notifications for apps

Email

• Encrypted and signed e-mail support
• New Email sync options with accordance to usage patterns (i.e. If you get a lot of mail on particular days and if you don’t check mail every day).
• Option to always download emails and pictures within them

Enterprise and Office

• Enterprise enrolled phones can have their passwords changed and remotely locked
• Password protected Office document support
• Office Lens support for scanning documents with camera, import into Office with OCR
• Rebranding of SkyDrive to OneDrive
• VPN support built in
• S/MIME to sign and encrypt email
• Access to corporate resources behind the firewall with app aware 
• Auto-triggered VPN 
• Certificate management to enroll, update and revoke certificates for user authentication 
• Enhanced MDM policies to lock down functionality on the phone for more enterprise control, in addition to richer application management such as allowing or denying the installing of certain apps. 
• Enterprise Wi-Fi support with EAP-TLS

General User Experience changes

• Start screen backgrounds with parallax motion
• Back button no longer closes apps, instead it suspends them
• Double-Tap to unlock your phone (Feature from Lumia devices on Amber Update and newer)
• Double Tap to Power Off
• Favorite photos by tapping a heart icon
• File picker
• Kid's Corner - Password won't be displayed (bug fix)
• Live Tiles – mark as red by swiping from the left over the Tile
• Live Tiles – Three column support (maybe)
• Navigation bar for phones without physical keys on the front
• Notification if charger isn’t of adequate power
• Quiet Hours - Disable notifications during pre-selected timeframe
• Screenshot button combination is now Power + Volume Up
• Search button will be the new way to open Speech (aka ‘Cortana’)
• Separate volume controls for ringtones/notifications and music/media
• Set default Voice Navigation app for the OS
• Swipe down to close apps in multitasking view
• Voice Narrator for Accessibility

Keyboard

• General keyboard enhancements, show emoji when typing
• Swipe keyboard option - “Write, when I swipe through letters”.

Media

• Audio/video transcoding, Hardware accelerated
• Media editing:  audio and video; Audio effects, video effects; Slow motion video
• Xbox Music and Xbox Video as standalone apps instead of the Music + Video Hub (allowing more updates to be pushed)

Messaging

• Change default SMS app. You can also change which SMS app will show notifications.
• Mute Thread - Optionally silence text threads, no longer receive notifications or Live Tile updates

Phone + Contacts

• Contact list sorting of those with phone numbers
• Call duration (press and hold reveals a "details" menu in call history)
• In-call speech commands. You’ll be able to say “Call XXXXXX”.
• Inner Circle of contacts. Up to 40 contacts can be in the inner circle.
• Operators can also install certain applications once a SIM card is detected

Sense

• Battery Power Sense – App to monitor which apps draw the most power
• Battery Saver (under Battery Sense) will have an app exclusion list
• Data Sense – Operators can now control Data Sense limits remotely
• Wi-Fi Sense – Sharing secured WI-Fi Networks with contacts if they have Wi-Fi Sense. They don’t get to see the shared password though
• Wi-Fi can auto re-enable after a set duration of time
• Wi-Fi Direct

System

• Bluetooth 4.0 LE
• Chkdsk for SD cards to ensure card health
• Geofence monitoring support. Geofence is a boundary around a place of interest to you. Location services can monitor geofences to tell your apps when you’re entering and leaving them. This would be really good for IFTTT
• Miracast, PlayTo, mirror and project via wireless display or USB-out
• Mouse and keyboard support (HID)
• Stereoscopic 3D support
• The phone will have to update to the latest version before you can restore it to factory settings
• Trusted app list for NFC that will remove the need for asking whether you want to open a particular app
• Virtual SmartCard support
• Wallet supports tickets and membership cards
• Windows Phone 8.1 apps won't run on 8.0 devices until they upgrade

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Exclusive Features of Windows 8 Phone

Windows Phone 8 is the second era of the Windows versatile working framework that has different cool and selective characteristics for clients. Throughout the last couple of months, the OS has picked up much prevalence in the business sector and it secured its place in different units like Nokia Lumia Series, HTC and that's just the beginning. Being a standout amongst the most effective portable working frameworks, the OS has every one of those characteristics and functionality that are fundamental to create any gem provision. It has characteristics like the interface that otherwise called Metro or Modern UI. Wp8 is an incredible OS of today's era as its new characteristics carry you closer to the individuals, places and things that you think about.

To make your Shrewd a joy to utilize consistently, the OS likewise has straightforward refinements and shields to help your information secure and your psyche calm. In this way, when you have chosen to get a provision of your wanted that dependent upon Wp8 stage, you may as well contract Windows Phone designer, who can create any kind of requisition that has restrictive characteristics. Today, the greater part of the versatile requisition designers are looking to make their vocation in the Windows Phone industry as this industry is extending step by step. Engineers can get different chances to make their blessing from heaven of getting professional designers.

Separated from this, it is additionally extraordinary stage for clients too on the grounds that this stage permits clients to appreciate different varieties of requisitions like business, e-taking in, money, amusement, games, travel, climate anticipating, multi-media, interpersonal interaction, individual utilities and a lot of people more.

To make your everyday transactions and exercises bug free, you can get any requisition, however verify that you just contract a professional Windows Phone 8 applications designer, who fathoms your prerequisites and create an application that suits your business necessities.

The agreeable feel and look of this OS is currently the handheld units, so individuals get primed to get an extreme encounter by utilizing Wp8 based advanced cells that permit them to perform their particular and professional errands effortlessly. Over the world, engineers are not just eager to go for the cool characteristics of this stage, yet they are rivalling android, ios and Blackberry designers to serve high-close results and the phone systems. To contract a committed designer, you can contact any Windows Phone Development Company that has proficiency to handle complex Windows ventures. From diverse organizations, it is very challenging for you to settle on a decision, however you can favour one such organization that has a master Windows Phone 8 programmers' group, who are dependably in front to convey bleeding edge results.

The adoration tiles and the dissimilar client interface remains Microsoft's biggest offering focuses for Windows Phone. The third gathering requisitions and characteristics of the telephones when its essentially playing get up to speed to the Android and iPhone. The Verizon executives in the US says that they need to see a practical third biological system nearby Apple's iPhone and Google's Android. With more potential accomplices to work with offers the transporters with additional preference against every one and might make them low reliant on the whims of Apple and Google.

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Windows Phone sales are actually beating iPhone in 27 countries

It looks as though 2013 was a pretty big year for Windows Phone. Despite the fact that it's still looked at as a major underdog in the mobile fight, devices running Microsoft's mobile OS are actually outselling the iPhone in 27 different countries.

Where is Windows Phone hot? Central and South America, Africa, Eastern Europe, and parts of Asia. It has shoved its way past the iPhone in Mexico and Columbia, Italy and Greece, and India and Pakistan. In Nokia's home country, Windows Phone is beating the iPhone, too. Forbes has the full list of countries, and there are some common threads. For the most part, they're nations where residents don't have the disposable income to throw around on something as pricey as an iPhone. Yes, the overwhelming majority of the Windows Phones that lead to these gains are low end. Yes, nearly all of them are made by Nokia - around 93% according to analyst data. Any way you slice it, it's clear that Windows Phone is picking up steam.

IDC figures that Windows Phone sales jumped 156% over the last year. While that means a relatively humble climb from 3.7 million units to just under six million, it's still a significant gain. If Microsoft can convince OEMs like HTC to give Windows Phone a go on their Android handsets, next year's increase could be even more dramatic.

Apple still rules in two very key markets - the U.S. and Japan - but even there Windows Phone is gaining ground. It's also catching up in the EU. iOS share has been mostly flat or falling, but Windows Phone is up in almost every country. Despite losing ground in dozens of markets, Apple is probably not that upset. There's so much delicious profit built into those shiny iPhones that a few measly points lost to Windows Phone in less affluent countries isn't a cause for panic. It's also not as if the iPhone is the only competitor Windows Phone is stealing share from. BlackBerry's still hemorrhaging users and Microsoft seems to be scooping them up, too.

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Smartphone camera shootout: iPhone 5S vs Samsung Galaxy Note 3 vs Nexus 5 and more

The Smartphones are getting flooded in the market, major companies are trying to compete with their competitors by launching better Smartphones. All we can see that, the companies are focusing on the features and technology of the handsets- either we look at the screen size, operating system, processes, or the camera, everything is improving. Really, now-a-days Smartphones camera is no less than any DSLR.

At the moment, all the major mobile manufacturer in 2013 has given the best Smartphone with high picture capturing resolution, let us compare head-to-head for top three handsets camera result.

iPhone 5S:

No doubt iPhone 5S is the Apple’s best iPhone ever made. And that’s the reason now Apple stands second most popular camera brand on Flickr after the Canon. It has as almost overtaken every other major camera manufacturers including Nikon as listed on the major websites.

The iPhone 5S have dual camera as the rare camera features an 8-MegaPixel iSight camera with f/2.2 aperture. The lens on it is more the size of the sensor, and that’s important for a camera than its resolution which most of the camera have lower. So, that means  a bigger sensor offers more light for the camera to play and when it's coupled further with the f/22 aperture lens in its way than it should help to improve its chances for capturing badly-li gig.

The capturing shots from iPhone 5s actually delivers fairly impressive pictures and it looks to take less processing time and that even results in sharper images, however the only think can’t compete with the incredible resolution of Nokia Lumia 1020 and HTC One.

Overall the iPhone 5S isn’t much good with its image quality, however the Apple has provided the best camera app and the redesigned for iOS7 is probably the best  and simple camera app available. Moreover, focus is rapid, and can shoot a large amount of shots just by tapping the screen is also a plus point.

Samsung Galaxy Note 3

After a grand success of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 2, the new handset of Sumsung provides much better features with the screen, resolution and camera. Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3 comes with Full HD 1080p, 5.7-inch display, and the best thing is the viewing photos. However, the issue arises with the 13-MegaPixal sensor which seemed to struggle with retaining detail in the low light.

In practice, if you check the results of our Primal Scream efforts than you can observe how the image appears softer but fairly noise free. Hence it takes a little processing time and likely results in the loss of details, however, it does better at cleaning up the extra noise.

The only tough job for Samsung camera it with the app, it just needs to simplify it’s  lots of functionality, but it’s rapid.

Nexus 5

Google’s latest and the cheapest Smartphone and somewhere also ends up being the lower side. However, Nexus 5 has introduced an optical image stabilization with 8-MegaPixal.

So, we can say Nexus 5 a little safer in the imaging feature and the recent camera update has also fixed the issues with its exposure and colour balancing effects.

Nexus 5 has the same issue with the processing and sensor, as it pays hard to capture some quality image. Well, it’s said that Android’s ‘vanilla’ camera app is really good, it’s simple yet have enough functionalities and likely closer to Lumia 1020. The only factor is the price so we can’t say it's a bad camera.

Nokia Lumia 1520

There’s no point in comparing this handset with any of the above still just the outline, it’s the same and also uses a PureView sensor, albeit a lower resolution one. It has a 20-MegaPixal sensor paired with the fantastic Nokia Pro Camera app as same as iPhone’s.

The Lumia 1520 is in the comfort zone with the broad daylight compared to Lumia 1020 and overall it stands out to be a clear winner.

Sr. No.	Device Name	Camera MegaPixel	Sensor Size	Score
1.	Apple iPhone 5S	8-MegaPixel	1/3"	8
2.	Samsung Galaxy Note 3	13-MegaPixel	1/3.06"	9
3.	Google Nexus 5	8-MegaPixel	1/3.4"	6
4.	Nokia  Lumia 1520	20-MegaPixel	1/1.5"	10

Author Bio:

Born in the UK, Christy Root is a contributing author for Prepaymania in the London. Christy is one of the renowned technology futurists and voice for must buy gadgets. Christy has been quoted in various online and offline technology publications. To know more about her, follow her on Google+

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Nokia Sale Fall in Q4

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LUMIA BLACK UPDATE Available

From Nokia Conversations - The Lumia Black update combines a host of new features, improvements in imaging, new apps and app updates from Microsoft and Nokia to make your Lumia smartphone experience even better.

So what can you look forward to, once Lumia Black is installed?

App Folder. This brand new feature makes your Lumia experience even more fluid by giving you an option to further personalize and organize your Start screen. With App folders you can group similar apps and settings into one folder, a tile, on your Start screen.

Nokia Glance screen 2.0.

Glance is a feature Android and Apple iOS are playing catch up on.

Helps you keep track of information in real-time, making all your most important notifications including: phone, messages, email, outlook, calendar, or any apps that use notifications such as Twitter, Facebook, Whatsapp, or games; always visible at a glance on your screen. It saves you time and energy.

Bluetooth LE. Will now be enabled across the full Windows Phone 8 Lumia range for compatible gadgets like the Adidas MiCoach accessories.

Nokia Refocus. The amazing Nokia Refocus comes to all Windows Phone 8 Lumia smartphones with 1GB of RAM and upwards. This app has to be seen to be believed, so what better excuse for showing another example:

Try it again. Very cool feature.

Nokia Beamer. Sharing what's on your phone is easier than ever with Nokia Beamer. No longer restricted to just photos, you can now beam documents, presentations, anything you like, to any HTML5-enabled screen by simply scanning a QR code on the screen. It's coming to all of the phones with 1GB RAM upwards.

Nokia Storyteller. This app debuted on the new Nokia Lumia 1520 and Lumia 2520 late last year. Now the experience comes to other Lumia smartphones. The app arranges your photos for you, by date and by place, making it easier to tell the stories behind your pictures, and give extra context through the close integration of interactive maps.

Nokia Camera. Combines Nokia Pro Camera and Smart Camera to simplify the photo-taking experience, and ensure you get the perfect shot every time. The app has been available for Lumia PureView smartphones since last year, but it's now coming to the rest of the WP8 Lumia range. 

The latest Nokia Camera update also brings raw DNG support for Lumia 1020 owners - something that's already available for Lumia 1520. The DNG format gives you access to pure and untouched visual information, allowing you to do more and be more creative with your images. If you are an enthusiast or professional photographer, now you can use your professional workflow with your smartphone images.

Latest generation of imaging algorithms. The Lumia Black update further improves the image quality, especially in Lumia 1020. Among others, the improvements include a new oversampling algorithm, making your images more natural looking with reduced noise, while ensuring your photos remain wonderfully sharp.

The Lumia Black update also brings a series of enhancements from Microsoft to Nokia Lumia smartphones. These include safe driving mode - which cuts out unnecessary distractions when you're on the road; customised ringtones for each contact. You can now also close apps within the in multitasking view and lock the screen rotation if you wish.

"Nokia Lumia Black updates the imaging experiences on your Lumia and makes using the Windows Phone even more fluid. New App Folders and the ability to close apps in multitasker are my personal favourites. I also encourage everyone to try out the Nokia Refocus app that introduces a whole new dimension to photography," says Samuli Hänninen, vice president of software program management for Nokia's Smart Devices business.

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Microsoft launches Guardian safety app for windows phone users in India.

Microsoft India on Thursday said it has introduce Guardian, a new safety application, available exclusively for windows phone users in India.

Incidents such as 'Nirbhaya' prompted the global IT giant to come out with an app aiming at protecting women, Microsoft IT India Managing Director Raj Biyani said.

Explaining its features, Biyani said Guardian enables users to switch on a track me feature in the app that lets friends and family track them in real-time using Microsoft windows Azure cloud service and Bing Map APIs.

Guardian users can call for help through an 'SOS' alert button and also connect to security agencies, police and hospitals easily via this app in times of distress.

The app was developed over six month by a group of enthusiastic Microsoft employees in India, within the Microsoft Garage. Microsoft Garage is a global employee innovation initiative that gives Microsoft employee innovation initiative that gives Microsoft employees an outlet to explore ideas in their free time, Biyani said.

To use Guardian effectively, users need to add the names of friends, family members and security groups to the settings and in an emergency situation, the app can be used to alert them, via the SOS button. All the user has to do is tap the SOS button, a Microsoft official said.

"The phone then sends a distress SMS to all buddies mobiles, notifying them of the emergency along with location details. At the same time the SOS button also sends emails to buddy email IDs and posts to private Facebook groups, if registered," the press release said.

Guardian uses Microsoft windows Azure cloud services and Bing Map APIs extensively and can help security authorities and medical teams track the user. The phone can be tracked even if it is broken. The appilication is capable of one touch video recording that may be used later as evidence, the press release added.

The Guardian app is available exclusively for windows phone user. It can be downloaded at here .

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Windows Phone 8 handset with dual SIM capabilities.

It appears that Nokia is finally ready to launch a Windows Phone 8 handset with dual SIM capabilities. Only a few days ago we told you about Nokia Moneypenny - a codename that stands for two slightly different smartphones: Lumia 630 and Lumia 350. We assumed that one of these was a dual SIM device. And it looks like we were right.


Famous leakster @evleaks tweeted a screenshot that’s reportedly from the Moneypenny's UI.

The image reveals Windows Phone 8 (obviously) and the existence of two SIM cards that both have access to 3G networks. Also revealed are the presence of Nokia MixRadio, HERE Maps, and the official Vine app for WP.

The
Nokia's first dual SIM Windows Phone handset seems to be the Moneypenny (Lumia 630 / 635)
screenshot's resolution is 480 x 854 pixels. Windows Phone 8 does not support this resolution, but it supports, among others, the 720 x 1280 pixel resolution - which has the same aspect ratio as a 480 x 854 image. So we're inclined to believe that the Moneypenny is a 720p handset.

Little else is known about the upcoming device for now. However, since dual SIM smartphones are quite popular in emerging markets, that's where Nokia will likely release the Moneypenny first. But let’s better wait for an announcement from the company to see exactly what this is all about.

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Nokia Moneypenny to reportedly launch as Lumia 630 or Lumia 635

Nokia has been rumoured to be working on a smartphone codenamed Moneypenny, which is also supposedly among the first windows phone device to run the upcoming windows phone 8.1 OS, aka windows phone Blue.

Now, prolific phone tipster, evleaks has ravealed that the alleged Moneypenny windows phone device could be launched as Lumia 630 or Lumia 635 . However, the tipster clearly mentions that the naming could totally depend on the device's configuration. evleaks tweet reads, "Nokia 
Moneypenny = Lumia 630/635 (depending on configuration)."

It's worth pointing out that the Nokia Lumia 520, Nokia Lumia 620, Nokia Lumia 720, Nokia Lumia 820, Nokia Lumia 920 and Nokia Lumia 1020 belong to the second generation of Nokia's Lumia line-up, while the third generation includes phones such as Nokia Lumia 925, Nokia Lumia 625 and Nokia Lumia 525 . Considering the Nokia's device naming nomenclature, we assume that Nokia might place the alleged Moneypenny in its third generation of Lumia line-up and call it the Lumia 635.

Recently a rumour suggested that the Finnish major has been planning to release a dual-SIM variant of the Moneypenny smartphone.

In addition, evleaks also reveals that an upcoming Nokia Asha phone, thought to be called Nokia spinel could be the Asha 230 and writes on Twitter, "Nokia spinel = Asha 230". However, the phone tipster has proved on details to support the claims.

Notably, both the alleged Nokia Goldfinger and Moneypenny smartphones codenames are linked to the James Bond movie. We already know that out of the two Nokia phone, Goldfinger was the higher-end device. The Nokia Goldfinger smartphone is said to feature Nokia's 3D Touch technology, which would let users navigate the touchscreen interface without actually touching the display, while other gestures under consideration include flipping and scrolling.

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Nokia Asha 502 with 5-megapixel camera launched in India at Rs.5,739

Nokia has launched its latest feature phone in the Indian market, the Asha 502 , priced at Rs. 5,739. The Nokia Asha 502 is now available on Nokia's online store.

The Finnish handset maker unveiled the Asha 502 in Octaber at Nokia World alongside Asha 500 and Asha 503 .

The Nokia Asha 502 is based on Nokia Asha platform 1.1 and supports firmware over-the-air ( FOTA) update. It features a 3-inch LCD display with a resolution of 240 by 320 ( QVGA) pixels. Unlike the Asha 500, the Asha 502 comes only in dual-SIM (GSM+GSM) variant with Nokia's Easy Swap technology and also supports dual standby. Notably , the Asha 502 supports  MIcro-SIM card instead of regular SIM size .

It comes with 1010mAh battery which can deliver up to 480 hours of standby time and upto 14 hours of talktime . It measures 99.6 by 59.5 by 11.1 mm and weighs 100 grams. The Nokia Asha 502 sports a 5-megapixel rear camera with LED flash. It comes with expandable storage up to 32GB with the help of microSD card.

The Nokia Asha 502 features the updated Fastlane app, which was introduced in Asha 501. Nokia claims that it has reworked th interface of the new Asha 502 and that it comes with one-swipe access to camera app and one-touch sharing feature on whatsApp. For now, there is no word about an India launch of the Asha 503.

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